Английская поэзия XIV–XX веков в современных русских переводах - Антология

for ever

Into the emptiness and silence, into the night.)

They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,

Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin — and therein

God’s little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,

And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal —

Till it was no more visible; then turned again

With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

Unfortunate

Heart, you are restless as a paper scrap

That’s tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;

Saying, “She is most wise, patient and kind.

Between the small hands folded in her lap

Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,

And find forgiveness where the shadows stir

About her lips, and wisdom in her strength,

Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!.”.

She will not care. She’ll smile to see me come,

So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.

She’ll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,

And open wide upon that holy air

The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,

Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.

The Call

Out of the nothingness of sleep,

The slow dreams of Eternity,

There was a thunder on the deep:

I came, because you called to me.

I broke the Night’s primeval bars,

I dared the old abysmal curse,

And flashed through ranks of frightened stars

Suddenly on the universe!

The eternal silences were broken;

Hell became Heaven as I passed. —

What shall I give you as a token,

A sign that we have met, at last?

I’ll break and forge the stars anew,

Shatter the heavens with a song;

Immortal in my love for you,

Because I love you, very strong.

Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,

Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,

I’ll write upon the shrinking skies

The scarlet splendour of your name,

Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder

Dies in her ultimate mad fire,

And darkness falls, with scornful thunder,

On dreams of men and men’s desire.

Then only in the empty spaces,

Death, walking very silently,

Shall fear the glory of our faces

Through all the dark infinity.

So, clothed about with perfect love,

The eternal end shall find us one,

Alone above the Night, above

The dust of the dead gods, alone.

Dust

When the white flame in us is gone,

And we that lost the world’s delight

Stiffen in darkness, left alone

To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,

And through the lips corruption thrust

Has stilled the labour of my breath —

When we are dust, when we are dust! —

Not dead, not undesirous yet,

Still sentient, still unsatisfied,

We’ll ride the air, and shine, and flit,

Around the places where we died,

And dance as dust before the sun,

And light of foot, and unconfined,

Hurry from road to road, and run

About the errands of the wind.

And every mote, on earth or air,

Will speed and gleam, down later days,

And like a secret pilgrim fare

By eager and invisible ways,

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,

Till, beyond thinking, out of view,

One mote of all the dust that’s I

Shall meet one atom that was you.

Then in some garden hushed from wind,

Warm in a sunset’s afterglow,

The lovers in the flowers will find

A sweet and strange unquiet grow

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,

So high a beauty in the air,

And such a light, and such a quiring,

And such a radiant ecstasy there,

They’ll know not if it’s fire, or dew,

Or out of earth, or in the height,

Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,

Or two that pass, in light, to light,

Out of the garden, higher, higher.

But in that instant they shall learn

The shattering ecstasy of our fire,

And the weak passionless hearts will burn

And faint in that amazing glow,

Until the darkness close above;

And they will know — poor fools, they’ll know! —

One moment, what it is to love.

The Jolly Company

The stars, a jolly company,

I envied, straying late and lonely;

And cried upon their revelry:

“O white companionship! You only

In love, in faith unbroken dwell,

Friends radiant and inseparable!”

Light-heart and glad they seemed to me

And merry comrades (even so

God out of Heaven may laugh to see

The happy crowds; and never know

That in his lone obscure distress

Each walketh in a wilderness).

But I, remembering, pitied well

And loved them, who, with lonely light,

In empty infinite spaces dwell,

Disconsolate. For, all the night,

I heard the thin gnat-voices cry,

Star to faint star, across the